Cindy Angelina

Liv­ing the dream

CINDY ANGELINA HAS just turned 27, and in her own words: “I’m liv­ing my dream - right now!” Esqa Cos­met­ics, a niche beauty brand she started with her best friend, Kezia Toemion, is gain­ing mo­men­tum. She reg­u­larly trav­els to some of the world’s most ex­cit­ing des­ti­na­tions. Be­yond that, a char­ity ef­fort called the Water­house Project, which she started with some of her friends, in­clud­ing Eu­nice Salim and Thanya Pong­gawa, has been mak­ing an im­pact.

“It’s amaz­ing when your ca­reer and your pas­sion come to­gether,” de­clares Cindy, who is a grad­u­ate of Pep­per­dine Uni­ver­sity in Cal­i­for­nia. Esqa Cos­met­ics has re­cently launched its new range, the God­dess Cheek Pal­ette, con­sist­ing of bronzer, blush and high­lighter.

“It’s the first ever trio pal­ette made in In­done­sia,” Cindy claims. “We have other on­go­ing projects through­out this year. We’re plan­ning to carry out a mas­sive ex­pan­sion of our prod­uct range, while also launch­ing ex­cit­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions with in­spir­ing per­son­al­i­ties. As I al­ways say to our fol­low­ers, do look for­ward to more sur­prises!”

Esqa has col­lab­o­rated with emerg­ing In­done­sian brands and no­table in­flu­encers. Aim­ing to “rev­o­lu­tionise” In­done­sia’s cos­met­ics in­dus­try, Esqa is claimed to be the coun­try’s first ve­gan cos­met­ics brand. On its web­site, to show how se­ri­ously it takes beauty and health is­sues, Esqa de­tails all of the in­gre­di­ents in its prod­ucts, and also cites its safety cer­tifi­cate se­rial num­ber from the In­done­sian Food and Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“Re­search shows that some in­gre­di­ents used by cos­met­ics com­pa­nies, like parabens, syn­thetic colours and tri­closan, could cause can­cer, among other health is­sues,” says Cindy. “When we saw that a few lo­cal beauty prod­ucts still use those in­gre­di­ents, we saw an op­por­tu­nity for us to come in with bet­ter prod­ucts.”

As do so many mil­len­ni­als, Cindy uses so­cial me­dia to pro­mote her busi­ness ven­tures. Be­fore start­ing Esqa, Cindy had al­ready po­si­tioned her­self as a style and beauty ex­pert. Close to 50,000 peo­ple fol­low her closely to ob­tain an in­sight into her per­sonal brand­ing ac­tiv­i­ties. In time, she has en­cour­aged many fol­low­ers to try out Esqa. Her prod­ucts are avail­able on­line and off­line, from out­lets in­clud­ing Sephora, Bon­heur, Go-Mart and So­ci­olla.

“It’s not easy to build a strong so­cial me­dia pres­ence, but once it’s up and run­ning, the plat­form can be used for more than just show­ing off your life­style,” states Cindy. “It’s a great, and free, mar­ket­ing and ad­ver­tis­ing tool to pro­mote the valu­able con­tent of your busi­ness.”

The young en­tre­pre­neur is clearly happy to be do­ing busi­ness suc­cess­fully in the age of so­cial me­dia. It’s a two-way process, of course, so she con­tin­u­ally re­ceives in­sight­ful feed­back that helps her and her team im­prove their prod­ucts. “So­cial me­dia has changed the way all of us do busi­ness,” Cindy points out. “It makes or­ganic mar­ket­ing ac­ces­si­ble. We get emails and mes­sages from cus­tomers, and even po­ten­tial busi­ness part­ners, from around the world.”

How has en­trepreneur­ship changed Cindy’s life? Since be­com­ing a CEO, she says, she has learned the true value of money. “To be hon­est, I never ap­pre­ci­ated money un­til I started my own busi­ness. When I worked with my dad (en­tre­pre­neur and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Her­man Hery Adrana­cus), I used to won­der where most of my pay­check went. I would spend im­pul­sively, as I knew I would still get paid at the end of the month. But now that I know all the ef­fort it takes to earn ev­ery penny, I ap­pre­ci­ate what I spend it on.”

Be­sides de­vel­op­ing her busi­ness, Cindy is also giv­ing back through the Water­house Project, which pro­vides clean wa­ter for peo­ple in Sumba, East Nusa Teng­gara. Most re­cently, the or­gan­i­sa­tion teamed up with the United Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme ( UNDP) to pro­vide wa­ter for Napu, a vil­lage in East Sumba.

As our cover shoot wraps up, Cindy re­flects: “I as­pire to be an em­pow­ered woman with vi­sion and grace. I hope I could in­spire oth­ers through­out my ca­reer. If you want to be suc­cess­ful in this world, you have to fol­low your pas­sion.”